Time for another liberal “right-wingers killed JFK” story

posted at 4:01 pm on July 25, 2014 by Allahpundit

Via Leon Wolf, one of my favorite genres of lefty revisionism. Liberals have, I assume, been farting out pieces like this since the day Oswald’s political sympathies became publicly known, but semi-respectable left-wing pubs have been picking them up more frequently since 2009 in the name of bludgeoning Obama’s conservative critics. The “logic” runs like this: (1) Dallas 1963 was a very conservative, staunchly anti-Kennedy city; (2) JFK was murdered in Dallas; (3) ergo, very conservative, staunchly anti-Obama tea partiers are basically terrorists.

You could kinda sorta forgive this if the assassin himself had been right-wing. It’s unfair to smear peaceful political opponents with the worst acts of their fellow travelers, but both sides have had fun with that at times. (See, e.g., Bush assassination fantasies from the last decade.) Problem is, Oswald wasn’t conservative. He was an out-and-out communist, so far to the left that he defected to the Soviet Union before later returning to the U.S. That’s another reason why this cottage industry of “Dallas killed Kennedy” items has grown up lately on the left — not only is it a cudgel against Obama’s opponents, it’s a way for progressives to disclaim responsibility for an infamous murder committed by someone on their side of the spectrum, which makes the fingerpointing at righties a bit easier. And of course it’s a way to whitewash American history for the benefit of younger people who didn’t live through the Kennedy assassination and haven’t studied it. They’re taking the “hard sell” approach here: Repeat “Dallas killed Kennedy” often enough and some ignoramuses out there will take you at your word, without bothering to check. And so the truth gradually vanishes, like the commissar in that famous photo with Stalin.

The right-wing hatred for John F. Kennedy was in some ways as extreme as the hatred for Barack Obama and nowhere was it more energized than Dallas in 1963. Three years earlier, right-wingers in the city had signaled their anti-Kennedy zeal by turning on its native son, Lyndon Johnson, after he accepted the nomination for vice president. He and his wife, Lady Bird, were accosted by a shrieking mob of conservative women in front of their hotel armed with signs saying he’d sold out to “Yankee Socialists.” It was downhill from there. Over the next three years the simmer burst into a full boil as various luminaries of the John Birch Society such as millionaire oil man H.L. Hunt and the anti-communist fanatic Gen. Edwin Walker, a zealot so far to the right that he even believed Eisenhower was a communist, fanned the flames of anti-Kennedy hatred.

Walker was at the center of the plot against Adlai Stephenson to which Mrs. Doyle referred in her letter. He had exhorted his followers (some of whom belonged to group that unironically called itself the “National Indignation Convention”) to confront the U.N. ambassador when he came to town and they did, hitting him with signs and spitting in his face before he could be rescued by the police. At the scene he famously asked, “Are these human beings or are these animals?”…

Travelers from other nations who come to Dealey Plaza to pay their respects are undoubtedly startled to see yahoos carrying guns and passing out extremist literature very much like the literature that was distributed in Dallas in the fall of 1963. In most places in this world such contempt for national hallowed ground would be frowned upon by decent people. But in America, armed men and women marching around spouting hatred for the president at the very spot where a former president was assassinated is business as usual. We are “free” here to carry guns in public and dare others to argue with us. But that doesn’t make it any less vulgar and profane to do it in a place of national grief — and what should be a monument to right-wing ignominy.

Once you know which way Oswald went politically, the thesis not only falls apart but the evidence tends to prove the opposite of what it’s supposed to illustrate: The nasty criticism of Kennedy from some quarters of the right in Dallas actually didn’t lead to a right-wing attempt on the president there. And yet this genre is evergreen. The best known piece from the last few years is Frank Rich’s essay for New York magazine a few years ago, but that piece was an outlier insofar as Rich actually mentioned Oswald. Believe it or not, it’s common for a “Dallas killed Kennedy” argument to omit his name entirely. Which makes a certain type of sense — when you’re assigning collective responsibility for the actions of a single man, especially a man who, er, wasn’t a member of that collective, it’s easiest to write him out of the story entirely. It’s pure Orwell, but then this is an Orwellian exercise. A Media Matters “Dallas killed Kennedy” post from 2009 didn’t name Oswald. Neither did an item by Robert F. Kennedy Jr for the Huffington Post two years later. Yesterday’s Salon post not only doesn’t name Oswald but, as Michael Moynihan pointed out, it does mention Gen. Edwin Walker — albeit without also mentioning that Oswald tried to assassinate Walker too because Walker was staunchly anti-communist. At the rate we’re going, by the centennial of the assassination, lefty websites will be claiming that it was Walker who fired at JFK from the Texas Schoolbook Depository before being apprehended by the heroic Officer Oswald.

Exit question: If lefties are eager to disclaim responsibility for Oswald, why not just emphasize that communism isn’t liberalism, i.e. that he doesn’t belong to their collective either? That’s a much stronger argument, yet writers in this genre seem reluctant to make it. I wonder why.

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Comments

Exit question: If lefties are eager to disclaim responsibility for Oswald, why not just emphasize that communism isn’t liberalism, i.e. that he doesn’t belong to their collective either? That’s a much stronger argument, yet writers in this genre seem reluctant to make it. I wonder why.

I think I get why liberals buy into AGW. It exists in the same world they live in: a theoretical model that never seems to match the real world but is nonetheless somewhat satisfying to them.

This is the world where Dallas killed Kennedy and Dallas children cheered the presidents assassination and some right-winger somewhere attempted to assassinate some president and Christians have some sort of history of being just as capable of terrorism as Muslims. And Obamacare is working, and the Muslims will just quiet down if Israel went away.

I think I get why liberals buy into AGW. It exists in the same world they live in: a theoretical model that never seems to match the real world but is nonetheless somewhat satisfying to them.

This is the world where Dallas killed Kennedy and Dallas children cheered the presidents assassination and some right-winger somewhere attempted to assassinate some president and Christians have some sort of history of being just as capable of terrorism as Muslims. And Obamacare is working, and the Muslims will just quiet down if Israel went away.

It’s also the world with President Martin Sheen.

Axeman on July 25, 2014 at 4:12 PM

I’ll add it made my skittle-pooping unicorn cry honeyed tears as he and his wedded boyfriend, who failed to get the necessary contraceptions from the Hobby Horse decision, went to get an abortion to live out the rest of their lives in Liberal Utopia.

Something else never mentioned was the fact that Oswald was a Marine stationed in Japan. As I recall, he worked in anti-aircraft missile batteries and when he defected he took quite a bit of sensitive material. The Russians could never get a shot at the U-2’s that routinely overflew the Soviet Union. Interestingly, after Oswald defected to the Soviet Union the Russkies seemed to be more adept at downing spy aircraft.

I’d forgotten that Oswald tried to Kill Gen. Walker.

And I always felt sorry for his Russian wife – who later became an American citizen – and his two daughters.

Yes, Oswald would be a right-winger in today’s terms. How many times does this need to be explained to you people? A while back, the terms “Republican” and “Democrat” were switched, and the term “Communist” gradually morphed into the term “Conservative“.

Hence, racists such as Bull O’Connor, Al Gore Sr., and Robert Byrd were actually Republican Communists.

But I’m betting you dumbasses still won’t understand this simple explanation.

Travelers from other nations who come to Dealey Plaza to pay their respects are undoubtedly startled to see yahoos carrying guns and passing out extremist literature very much like the literature that was distributed in Dallas in the fall of 1963. In most places in this world such contempt for national hallowed ground would be frowned upon by decent people.

I am guessing he has no problem though with the lefty extremist propaganda being pushed and the WTC site.

Lee Harvey Oswald was a leftist socialist/Communist.
John Wilkes Booth was a left wing Actor.
Sirhan Sirhan was a PALESTINIAN muslim.
James Earl Ray was a southern Dixiecrat
Leon Czolgosz was a self-proclaimed anarchist

I don’t see why the left has taken this tact. For most of the years since 63 the story was that Oswald was a fall guy for the CIA and the military and right wing who wanted Kennedy dead because he was for pulling out of Vietnam. That would seem to still work with the feeble minded. Why confuse them with a new theory?

Oswald wasn’t conservative. He was an out-and-out communist, so far to the left that he defected to the Soviet Union before later returning to the U.S.

Indeed, and this attempt by the left to recast him as a conservative, or even a RINO, is an indicator of the depth of the desperation on the left, but also a meter of their own self-loathing and guilt over the Kennedy assassination.

They are quite serious about rewriting history. Hitler was a devout Catholic, the KKK was right-wing Republican hate, Democrats always loved the black folks, Lincoln and Martin Luther King just had to be Democrats.

The truth means nothing to these people. The ‘narrative‘ means everything.

The “Dallas killed Kennedy” meme began within an hour of the shooting. I recently watched the re-play of CBS’s coverage of the assassination, and Walter Cronkite was fast to speculate that the vocal right ringers in Dallas were responsible, even before the president’s death was officially confirmed.

Cronkite emphasized that Dallas was a far right conservative city, and that its lunatic fringe often captured the attention of the media. A recent ugly event involving UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was enough for CBS to convict Dallas.

The truth, just as unacceptable to popular opinion now as it was 50 years ago, is that a conservative city did not kill Kennedy. In history and literature, a giant protagonist merits a giant antagonist; Christ had his Pilate, Caesar had his Brutus, Kennedy had his . . . Oswald? The assassination turned the story line on its head.

Hard as it was and still is to accept, Kennedy’s murderer was just a loser who struggled to obtain and keep minimum wage jobs. Oswald viewed himself as an intellectual who liked to say that he was a Marxist, not a communist, as if he was smart enough to distinguish between the two.

Oswald was on a 6 year campaign to establish his bona fides as a leftist, beginning with reading the literature while a Marine, through his defection to the USSR, his attempt to murder the right wing Maj. Gen. Edwin Walker, and his trip to Mexico 2 months before the assassination where he attempted to book passage to Cuba to fight with Fidel. Even Jackie Kennedy, that very night, lamented that her husband had been killed by “a crummy little communist”.

If Kennedy’s political views did lead to his death, it certainly was not because of his moderate positions on civil rights (he refused to meet with Martin Luther King until after the I Have a Dream speech) or the economy (he wanted to cut taxes), but might have been because of his reputation as a staunch anti-communist.

His inaugural address was devoted to his commitment to a strong foreign policy, with nothing said about domestic affairs. His promise to “pay any price, bear any burden” was directed externally, not internally. He said, “ . . . [T]he rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.”

Yes, Dallas was then a rare republican stronghold in democratic Texas. But tell me, were liberal views any less mainstream in Dallas in 1963 than conservative views are today in San Francisco or Portland or Madison or Chicago? Did we ever discuss the political atmosphere in Memphis or Los Angeles in 1968 or in Washington, DC in 1981? How about in California in 1975 where 2 attempts to kill President Ford were made?

The good citizens of Dallas turned out by the tens of thousands to provide President Kennedy with a warm and generous hero’s welcome. One person, a far leftist, did not. Truth be told, that one person’s world view had more in common with that of the current occupant of the White House than it did with President Kennedy, or with any of the many who greeted the President that day.

After 50 years, it’s still impossible for liberals to accept that Kennedy was not killed BY conservatives, but that he might have been killed because he WAS a conservative on the issue of fighting communism.

So did a certain “Jacks” philandering!! I’m still not so sure that Joe Kennedy had MM killed because she was a loose cannon with intimate knowledge and the Yankee Clipper had his Mafia buds dust off the president to even the score!!

Exit question: If lefties are eager to disclaim responsibility for Oswald, why not just emphasize that communism isn’t liberalism, i.e. that he doesn’t belong to their collective either? That’s a much stronger argument, yet writers in this genre seem reluctant to make it. I wonder why.

That’s because liberalism IS communism… did you not get the memo?

Oh yeah… hard drives.

Turtle317 on July 25, 2014 at 4:05 PM

Not liberalism, but yes: Lefties are communists. I’m sure lefties can point out differences, but they’re all trivial and essentially meaningless.

After 50 years, it’s still impossible for liberals to accept that Kennedy was not killed BY conservatives, but that he might have been killed because he WAS a conservative on the issue of fighting communism.

After 50 years, it’s still impossible for liberals to accept that Kennedy was not killed BY conservatives, but that he might have been killed because he WAS a conservative on the issue of fighting communism.

Oswald was a commie and a loser, wanting to make his mark on the world.

Even the KGB tagged him as a loser, which we found out when their files were opened for a brief period in the ’90s.

I mean, really, the guy was Pro-Fidel, Pro-USSR, defected to the USSR, then defected back and told his wife that he expected the press reporters to swarm him at the airport and then was crushed when no one showed up.

His brother thought he was a loser and when he heard that Oswald did it basically said it was what he wasn’t shocked.

Oswald’s problem with Kennedy was that Kennedy wasn’t a Leftist like he was.

And you have to keep in mind “conspiracy” is a large catch-all term – especially in this specific context. At it’s core it just means more than one person involved in something. But it’s come to mean Bigfoot, Elvis, UFOs and all sorts of AlexJones-y bric a brac getting tossed into the hopper.

And you have to keep in mind “conspiracy” is a large catch-all term – especially in this specific context. At it’s core it just means more than one person involved in something. But it’s come to mean Bigfoot, Elvis, UFOs and all sorts of AlexJones-y bric a brac getting tossed into the hopper.

Lee Harvey Oswald was a leftist socialist/Communist.
John Wilkes Booth was a left wing Actor.
Sirhan Sirhan was a PALESTINIAN muslim.
James Earl Ray was a southern Dixiecrat
Leon Czolgosz was a self-proclaimed anarchist

I See a Pattern Here.

portlandon on July 25, 2014 at 4:26 PM

This ^^^ Just to make a couple of additions,

“Sirhan Sirhan was a PALESTINIAN muslim” or Jew-Hating Nazi for the current crop of OBots to better understand.

And add to all the above, virtually every mass shooter in the US in the last 30 years, all crazy and/or leftist Democrats.

WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY: “MARXIST: A devotee or follower of Karl Marx, noted right wing NRA fanatic. Term has come to denote anyone following righ5t win causes–especially one who acts violently against progressives and progressive causes.”

WEBSTER’S DICTIONARY: “MARXIST: A devotee or follower of Karl Marx, noted right wing NRA fanatic. Term has come to denote anyone following right wing causes–especially one who acts violently against progressives and progressive causes.”

And I’ll just add, that leading up to and during the Civil War, the main opposition to Lincoln (R) wanting to end slavery was the Democrat party of the time. In fact, when Lincoln ran against McClellan (D) in 1864, the Democrat ran and lost on a platform of restoring slavery to America.

This also ties into the fact that the only real opposition to the Civil Rights act of 1964 came from the Democrat party.

Don’t let that get out either, the black community is duped on that one too!

It’s required. The truth swiftly debunks all their cherished shibboleths.

This is why you can never have an honest discussion with leftists. They will always lie, change the subject, or go on the attack instead of engaging directly. You can’t talk to people like that, unfortunately.

Shouldn’t a body go forward when hit in the back of the head by a high velocity bullit not violently backwards?The car was going around 15mph,the wind was blowing across the car left to right and the motorcycle cop on the left rear was sprayed with blood and brains.I wonder about these things and surely don’t trust the governments results.

He was an out-and-out communist, so far to the left that he defected to the Soviet Union before later returning to the U.S.

With all due respect, I’ve heard this over and over. I have yet to see anything definitive that Oswald defected to the USSR, although I can find items where Oswald TRIED to defect, but was rejected by the USSR.

Shouldn’t a body go forward when hit in the back of the head by a high velocity bullit not violently backwards?The car was going around 15mph,the wind was blowing across the car left to right and the motorcycle cop on the left rear was sprayed with blood and brains.I wonder about these things and surely don’t trust the governments results.

With all due respect, I’ve heard this over and over. I have yet to see anything definitive that Oswald defected to the USSR, although I can find items where Oswald TRIED to defect, but was rejected by the USSR.

I Lee Harvey Oswald do hereby request that my present citizenship in the United States of America, be revoked.

I have entered the Soviet Union for the express purpose of applying for citizenship in the Soviet Union, through the means of naturalization.
My request for citizenship is now pending before the Surprem Soviet of the U.S.S.R.
I take these steps for political reasons. My request for the revoking of my American citizenship is made only after the longest and most serious considerations.
I affirm that my allegiance is to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

His family was Christian. He was a Baptist, Seventh-day Adventist and a Rosicrucian at different times. I don’t believe he ever was a Muslim.

whatcat on July 25, 2014 at 5:39 PM

You’re correct, I don’t think he was ever a Muslim. I would hesitate to call him a Christian also, in fact it sounds like prior to killing RFK, I doubt any of those various religions had much influence. He also was known to dabble in the occult.

I would say the best description is that he was probably just bat$h!t crazy.

Response I got from a liberal yesterday, after I pointed out that the Nazis were basically leftists:

You know why the Nazis were really right wingers? Because ultra-right wingers oppress and murder people simply because of their race or ethnicity. It is a defining characteristic of extreme conservatism.The people who enslaved Africans were right-wingers. The people who opposed it were leftists. The people who seceded from the US in order to continue slavery were right wingers. The people who were abolitionists were largely liberals. The people who denied Asians entry into the US were right-wingers. The people who opposed these policies were progressive liberals. The people who brutally lynched over 5,000 innocent African Americans in this country were right wingers. The people who fought bravely to expose and end those lynchings were liberals. The people who spent over 100 years devising apartheid in the South were right wingers. The people who worked to end it were liberals. The people who stood in the doorways of schools across the South and decried the entrance of “niggers” on national TV were right wingers. The people who were murdered trying to integrate the South were liberals. And the anti-semitic, white supremacists who ran fascist Nazi Germany were right wingers. And the brave Americans who denounced the Holocaust the loudest were liberals.